Vegetation Restoration Alters Fungal Community Composition and Functional Groups in a Desert Ecosystem

Ying Zhang,Peishan Zhao,Xiaoshuai Wei,Hongyu Cao,Guanglei Gao,Mingchang Shi,Guodong Ding

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2021.589068

Abstract

Revegetation is regarded as an effective means to improve the ecological environment in deserts and profoundly influences the potential ecological functions of the soil fungal community. Therefore, Illumina high-throughput sequencing was performed to characterize the soil fungal diversity and community composition at two soil depths (0–10 cm and 10–20 cm) with four revegetation durations (natural grassland, half-mature, nearly mature, and mature Pinus. sylvestris var. mongolica plantations) in the Mu Us Sandy Land, China. The effects of soil properties on soil fungal communities were also examined to reveal the connection between fungal function and soil environment. The results indicated that 1) soil nutrient content and enzyme activity showed significant differences through the restoration durations, 2) there was no significant effect of soil depth on soil fungal diversity, while the Shannon diversity index of all fungal communities was significantly different among different revegetation durations, 3) compared with grassland, ectomycorrhizal fungi (notably, Inocybe, Tuber, and Calostoma) were abundant in plantations. The endophyte fungus Mortierella was among the top 10 genera in all soil samples and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Diversispora was the indicator genus of the grassland, and 4) catalase and total nitrogen were the main factors affecting fungal community composition and were closely related to saprotrophs and pathotrophs, respectively. This new information indicates the variation of soil fungal communities along revegetation durations and highlights the interaction between fungal functions and desert ecosystems.

Highlights

Due to long-term and unreasonable land use, the native land has suffered serious ecological degradation and water and soil erosion, which has resulted in the loss of ecological function and services (Nearing et al, 2017; Deng et al, 2019)
Significant differences were noted in the content of SOM, TN, and TP, with a higher nutrient content observed in upper soil (p < 0.05; Figure 1)
Soil nutrient content (SOM, TN, and TP) and enzyme activity showed significant differences among restoration durations, while soil pH and SWC were not affected by soil depth or restoration duration

Summary

Introduction

Due to long-term and unreasonable land use, the native land has suffered serious ecological degradation and water and soil erosion, which has resulted in the loss of ecological function and services (Nearing et al, 2017; Deng et al, 2019). Revegetation is considered an effective way to impart ecological benefits (Nunez-Mir et al, 2015; Xiao et al, 2015), including improving the quality of soil and vegetation coverage (De Deyn and Van der Putten, 2005; Wang et al, 2012), rehabilitating degraded environments (Jing et al, 2014), and accelerating the recovery of degraded lands Vegetation restoration enhances the ecological stability in restored lands along with the fosterage of soil microbial community succession (Zhang et al, 2017b; Guo et al, 2018). The diversity and distribution of the functional groups in soil fungi determine the ecological effects of soil fungal communities, which are of great significance for the revegetation process under stress (Jin et al, 2016; Detheridge et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2020)

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Conclusion